Is General Mark Milley now off the hook?

It has been a tough two days for General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and also but less so for Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and General Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command. Milley has been the one really on the spot, not just for his remarks about what he advised Biden on Afghanistan but also why he rang his Chinese counterpart to let him know Trump was not plotting to attack China. He seems to have got away with it because despite some pretty brutal questioning by Republicans on the Senate and House armed services committees, his responses to their questions were always given in an unemotional and pragmatic way, as you would expect of a four-star general. But there remains one big question mark. Milley went on at length about all the people he consulted in the Trump admnistration before he rang General Li Zuocheng in Beijing about Chinese fears of an American attack. He said he discussed his proposed phone call with everyone from the then defence secretary Mark Esper, the CIA director, national security adviser etc etc and presumably they all agreed it would be a good idea. No one told Trump. But that was for the call Milley made to General Li in October 2020. What about the second call he made the following January? We know he didn't discuss it beforehand with Chris Miller, the new acting defence secretary after Esper's sacking, because Miller has already said he knew nothing about it. I don't think either of the congressional committees focused on that discrepancy. Perhaps Milley thought that as he had had approval from within the Trump administration for the first call, he could make the second one without going through all the consultation rigmarole again. Especially as it was to the same Chinese general and was on the same subject. But I think Milley got away with that and he must be very relieved. I liked it when he waved a whole sheaf of papers in the air as he was being interrogated about the intelligence he claimed showed how worried the Chinese were about a Trump-ordered military attack in the dying days of his presidency. He promised to show the committees the juicy intelligence but not, unfortunately, to the press and public. So we'll never know whether the whole thing was wild surmising or genuine intel leaking out of the high-ups in Beijing.

The 2,500-troop option for Afghanistan? Never heard it, says Biden

Not only all military people in the US were recommending that 2,500 American troops should stay behind in Afghanistan as a long-term visible presence in Kabul to deter the Taliban after the rest of the force had gone home. But every commentator with any decent US military sources, including myself, was also making it clear that the military wanted an abiding presence in Kabul as a safeguard for the future and as a reminder to the Taliban that if they were genuine about a shared government they had to get on with it and that US trops would be there to make sure it happened. But no, says Joe Biden, he has no recollection of ever being advised by the military that this number of troops should stay in Kabul. So where the hell was the president when all his advisers were talking about it? How can he now say it's the frst time he has heard of it? The White House says life is more complicated and it's never black and white and the military advisers had not been so specific. But Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley and General Frank McKenzie HAD been specific because they said as much in Congress yesterday. And, most importantly, it was confirmed that General Scott Miller, the guy in charge of US forces in Afghanistan, had made exactly the same request. So everyone at the top in the military were unanimous. No division, no splitting hairs. Yet Biden has no recollection. What I could have understood was the president saying, "Yes, ok, the military wanted 2,500 troops in Kabul but for a number of reasons I rejected that advice and went for the total withdrawal and I stand by it." The reasons could have been, for example, "I thought, what could 2,500 troops do that would deter the Taliban if they came full throttle into Kabul to seize power, and if they did would I be forced to send reinforcements in which case the war goes on for ever and I promised to end forever wars." As an explanation I think that makes reasonable sense and, as president and commander-in-chief, he is in his right to make such a decision. He's the boss. But to say, "I have no recollection." That takes the biscuit, as we say in Blighty.

How America's top military men gave in to Biden's Afghanistan demands

I only listened to the first 20 minutes of the live appearance before the Senate armed services committee of US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and General Frank McKenzie, commander of Central Command but it was already clear that the decisions made prior to the final withdrawal of all US troops from Hamid Karzai international airport in Kabul were all based on false hopes, wrong judgments, bad intelligence, poor vision and a disgraceful, yes digraceful sense of betrayal to the American citizens and Afghan loyalists who had been promised a safe exit from Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban takeover. Joe Biden had pledged in a TV interview that US troops in some configuration or other, would stay in Kabul until all American nationals had left. That didn't happen. The unbelieveable decision to abandon Bagram, the huge two-runway airbase which had been at the heart of all US operations throughout the 20-year war, while the Taliban were on the rampage and advancing rapidly across the country towards Kabul, and then the hasty much-earlier-than-planned evacuation from Hamid Karzai airport not only caused mass confusion and led to the dsastrous Isis suicide bombing, but also removed from the Afghan national security forces any motivation or will power to stay and fight the insurgents. They thought, if the US has given up, then so will we. And that's what happened. Kabul was handed to the Taliban on a plate. The three military men appearing before the committee had nothing to say that made that conclusion look any better or wiser or more acceptable. OK, they all agreed that, without actually revealing their advice to Biden as commander-in-chief, they did recommend, based on the appeal by General Scott Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, that 2,500 US troops should stay in Kabul for as long as was necessary, if not for ever, to provide stability. But Biden said no, he wanted them all out by August 31. Did they put up a fight? Did any of them warn that this would be a total disaster? Did any of them threaten to resign if this was not reversed? No! Judging by what they said before the committee, they accepted the commander-in-chief's order without any fight and then made the tactical decision to get the troops out as fast as possible, most of them well before August 31. In fact there were only 1,000 troops left when the Taliban were heading for Kabul, not enough to do anything meaningful. In the end of course Biden was forced to send 4,000 or more troops to Kabul to help with the evacuation catastrophe. In my view, Biden ill-served his country, the tens of thousands of servicemen and women who had risked their lives in Afghanistan and the Afghan people by his decision, and those three military gentlemen, paticularly Austin and Milley, failed in their duty to persuade Biden to change his mind and failed in their duty to explain why it was so vital for troops to remain as a safeguard to stop a Taliban takeover and reverse all the good things that had taken place during the 20 years of war.

One little Royal Navy frigate in Taiwan Strait and Beijing thinks we are declaring war!

The worst thing about arms races, particularly nuclear arms races, is that the nations involved have convinced themselves that their worst enemy or potential worst enemy is plotting to annihilate them when actually this is total nonsense. Thus, the Soviet Union believed that the US-led Nato alliance was formed to destroy "the motherland" and the US was convinced that the Kremlin had its plans all ready to send tens of thousands of tanks across the border into Germany and then probably use tactical nuclear weapons to clean up. So sure was Moscow that the US was building bigger and better and longer-range nuclear missiles to turn the Soviet Union into radioactive dust that it went on a nuclear arms race it couldn't afford. It was a vicious circle. The US and Nato knew that they had no wish or intention to invade or attack the Soviet Union but still wanted to have nuclear weapons in key locations in case the Soviet Union's vast superiority in conventional weapons overran Europe. Nukes would then come into play. But only a madman would have actually thought of invading the Soviet Union first as a sort of insurance policy to prevent Armageddon. But Moscow was convinced the US and Nato were full of such madmen and nothing Nato leaders said to try and persuade them that this wasn't true just went over the Soviet heads. They knew, didn't they, that Nato was an aggressive alliance formed solely to destroy the Soviet Union! This dangerous thinking went on for decades and it's a miracle nothing happened. The world survived the Cold War. Now it's happening all over again except it's China versus the US. Some very silly former Chinese ambassador for disarmament at the UN has said that China should consider changing its nuclear policy so that if the US were to get involved in protecting Taiwan against Chinese forces Beijing should press the nuclear button. In other words, drop the no-first-use posture and be the first to use nukes if required. As a former so-called expert on disarmament this is both irresponsible and dangerous talk. But he said it because of the UK's and America's new nuclear alliance with Australia - providing nuclear-powered submarines to the Aussies - and he believes that means Washington, London and Canberra are threatening China. Which they are not, they are just paying for - here we again - additional insurance to make sure Beijing doesn't do anything stupid. It's the same old Cold War argument and it obviously doesn't impress Beijing. Look how Beijing reacted today to the arrival of a dear little Royal Navy frigate in the Tawain Strait. It was like the UK had declared war on China. Oh for goodness sake, Beijing, stop getting so het up and spend more time helping the world by getting rid of all your coal-fired power stations. One frigate steaming up the Taiwan Strait ain 't threatening anybody. It's pathetic. But also worrying because Beijing - and Washington - are getting increasingly paranoid and that's dangerous for all of us.

Of course the petrol queues are about Brexit!

I hate to say it but my country is in a sorry mess right now. It has been many years since I last saw long queues of cars clogging up the roads as they wait to fill up with petrol and supermarket shelves running out of essential food. We are not a country at war and yet there is a sense of panic everywhere. Plenty of fuel but no drivers to drive the tankers to the petrol stations and food to the shops. And gas prices going up and energy companies going bankrupt. The Boris Johnson government insists this has nothing to do with Brexit but of course it is. The 5,000 extra heavy goods lorry drivers we need are the very same 5,000 from across the way on the European continent who left the UK because of Brexit changes which made them unwelcome. Now Boris wants them back and has promised to give them three-month visas to help us out. If that isn't Brexit I don't know what is. Boris and co say it's all the fault of the lorry companies who don't pay their drivers enough and make them work long hours but that has been the case for years, well before Brexit. The absence of 5,000 foreign drivers is because Brexit sent them home. Ministers say there is no reason to panic-buy petrol but no one is listening. So the queues and the clogging traffic is getting worse by the day. Everyone is panicking!

So farewell Angela Merkel

She has been around for so long it is difficult to imagine Germany without Angela Merkel as Chancellor. She has been an immense political figure both for Germany and for the world stage. Judging by the closeness of the election and the candidates standing to replace her, Germany is going to go through a period of uncertainty and doutbful leadership. This at a time when the relationship between the US and Europe is still struggling after the four years of Donald Trump and eight months of Joe Biden who seems somewhat distanced from his European allies and hesitant about a lot of things except for his decision on Afghanistan. A new chancellor in Germany will complicate the dynamics both for the Americans and for the rest of Europe, including the UK of course. But mostly for France. Merkel and Macron have been ineresting and important bedfellows, and without Merkel's solid presence, Macron is going to flounder for a while until the new German leader shows his or her stripes. It will be less of a problem for Boris Johnson who seems set on building stronger and stronger relations with Biden to the detriment of European allies. That may be unfair but the way Boris has been smooching Biden in the last few days it seems clear where his loyalties lie even though the US president snubbed him over the hoped-for US/UK trade deal. Merkel meanwhile is contemplating her exit and desperately trying to boost the chances of a rather sombre-looking man as her replacement. Armin Laschet from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party doesn't look a lot of fun but then Merkel could be pretty wooden-faced as well. But she was always a mighty figure, recognisable by her devotion to trouser suits. Laschet has only a small chance of winning but he could just make it. If he does will he and Macron become a dynamic duo? I think not. So farewell Angela Merkel, you will be missed.

Macron should calm down

By all accounts Emmanuel Macron is still in a dark rage over the aborted diesel-electric submarine deal with Australia he thought was all wrapped and ongoing until Joe Biden and Boris Johnson and their new security friend Scott Morrison stepped in and smashed it all down with the superior nuclear-powered boat deal. Macron in a dark rage is not good for France nor for US-French relations, nor for the Nato alliance, nor for Anglo-French chumminess, nor for the French president's own piece of mind and personal ambitions. I don't know whether Boris's apparent comment, "Donnez moi un break" was actually said but Macron needs to calm down or he is going to bust something. As I have written already, in the defence procurement business, especially in huge contracts involving things like submarines, the big boys generally win and allies can go to hell. I guess what could have happened is that Morrison, a hard man it seems, could have turned to France and asked them to build nuclear-powered submarines and scrap the diesel-electric ones. But he didn't. He decided to ask the US and UK behind the French backs. Macron is so angry at the impertinence of the "Fella Down Under" that he is now asking Australia to cough up $45 billion in compensation for the loss of the conventionaly-powered submarine programme. Lawyers are going to have a field day. Meanwhile Macron has agreed to talk to Biden on the phone but I can't see it ending happily. At some point Macron is going to get so steamed up he might call the US president by a name that everyone knows is a real insult in the French language. "Cochon." It will be very tempting for Macron. But, as I say, he should calm down. Perhaps his wife will manage to persuade him to think big picture. Always a wise move.

US stealth bombers away!

Development of a new US stealth bomber is progressing faster than expected with five of the exotically-shaped aircraft now in the final stages of assembly. Few details have emerged of the highly classified programme to replace the B-2 Spirit bomber which represented a quantum leap in aircraft design when it first entered service in 1997. The long-range “flying wing” B-21 Raider which is being built at the US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, is modelled on the B-2. But the air force has revealed only tempting glimpses of what the new stealth bomber will look like. The rapid progress on the B-21 has been revealed by Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s secretary of the air force. His confirmation that five of the test aircraft are nearly completed took aviation experts by surprise. Previously only two had been confirmed as nearing final assembly. Under current planning the B-21 will be ready for its first flight in the spring or summer of next year and operational by the mid-2020s. The B-21, like the B-2, will be part of America’s airborne nuclear deterrent but will have many other roles including a long-range conventional strike capability. The B-2 has been used in all the conflicts since the Kosovo campaign in 1999 in a conventional bombing capacity. Although both the B-2 and the B-52 Stratofortress bomber will continue to be updated to allow these aircraft to fly for many more years, the arrival of the B-21 Raider will provide the US with a technology superiority unmatched by either of the two “great power” rivals, China and Russia. China is working on its own strategic stealth bomber, known as H-20. But the US has the advantage of having developed and flown in combat the world’s first stealth bomber, the B-2. The B-21 has been designed with next-generation stealth technology to give the aircraft as invisible a presence as possible to enemy radar. It is also expected that the B-21 will be smaller than the B-2, to meet the demand for invisibility. The new stealth bomber which is being developed by Northrop Grumman will cost around $600 million each. The air force hopes to buy 145 of the bombers. Only 21 B-2s were built. It is possible that some of the planned B-21s will be unmanned versions, or as the US Air Force describes it, bombers with a “pilot-optional” capability. This option was included in the original requirements set by the air force.

Biden's challenge by Iran

The biggest question in the longrunning confrontation between Iran and the West over Tehran's suspected clandestine nuclear weapons programme has always been: how long would it take for the Iranians to build a bomb if the regime decided to go all the way as fast as possible. Over the years the US and Israel have come up with different estimates, with Tel Aviv offering a more alarmist prediction than Washington. A long way back Israel's Mossad believed Iran could have the bomb by mid-2013. Eight years on and Iran has not joined the nuclear weapons club. But suddenly the estimates have dramatically narrowed, with the International Atomic Energy Agency claiming Tehran could be a month away from producing weapons-grade fissile material for a bomb. That means uranium enriched by 90 per cent. Howeve, even if that were achieved the actual manufacture of a nuclear warhead capable of being fitted onto the top of a ballistic missile ready for launch would still be some way off, perhaps a year. So at this stage Iran's progress towards weapons-grade fissile material appears to be part of a heavy-duty diplomatic game being played by Tehran to put maximum pressure on the US, in particular, but also on the other signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, to agree an updated version that would be of greater benefit to Iran. In other words a more rapid lifting of economic sanctions than had been allowed for under the initial accord signed by President Obama. If it is possible for Iran to "break out" and move from 60 per cent enrichment to 90 per cent in just a month, Tehran under its new president, the ultra conservative Ebrahim Raisi, has effectively thrown down the gauntlet to Washington. President Biden is keen to bring the US back into the 2015 deal after his predecessor's decision unilaterally to end America's involvement. Iran's interest in nuclear technology goes back to the 1950s when the Shah of Iran was included in President Eisenhower's "atoms for peace" programme in which nuclear technology was to be shared with other countries for peaceful purposes. The deal ended with the 1979 Iranian revolution but Tehran's interest never wained and Iran's scientists developed what is known as the nuclear fuel cycle which included installing gas centrifuge systems for enriching uranium. It was this capability which led to the imposition of international sanctions between 2002 and 2015. The breakthrough deal signed by Iran and the five members of the UN permanent security council plus Germany in 2015 under which Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear programme in return for a phased lifting of sanctions was only to last 25 years. Donald Trump denounced the deal and duly extracted the US from the list of signatories in May 2018 after he came to power. Now, potentially, the nuclear brinkmanship has reached a new dangerous level. Biden is already facing the challenge of North Korea raising the stakes with its recent test-firing of long-range ballistic and cruise missiles. If Biden gives in to Tehran's demands, the new Iranian president and Kim Jong-un of North Korea might feel they have got the measure of the US president.

The Taliban and their heroin finances

The heroin trade in Afghanistan will continue to flourish under the new Taliban rulers despite public statements promising to ban poppy cultivation, US intelligence sources said. With the guarantee of such a huge annual income from growing opium , the insurgent leaders- turned-governors will find it impractical to force farmers to switch to alternative crops, the sources said. Last month, Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, declared at a press conference in Kabul that the new rulers would not allow Afghanistan to be turned into a fully-fledged narco state. We are assuring our countrymen and women and the international community we will not have any narcotics produced,” he said. “From now on, nobody is going to get involved [in the heroin trade], nobody can be involved in drug smuggling,” he said. However, Afghanistan is the biggest opium producer in the world. Even if a ban is imposed, the US intelligence sources said , it was unlikely to last long. “There are a lot of poppy farmers involved,” they said. US counter-narcotics units found the same problem. They tried to persuade farmers to switch to wheat and cereal crops and spent nearly $9 billion over 15 years in the process. But, like similar attempts by Britain’s MI6, they failed to make any significant impact on opium poppy cultivation. Key players in the opium business in Afghanistan included regional governors, Taliban commanders and war lords who had built up networks over two decades and they were not going to give up the lucrative trade, the intelligence sources said. The money paid to the farmers was always enough to allow them to survive the winter with their families while the next season of poppy crops matured. Banning cultivation would hit the poorest families and generate anger against the Taliban. The same dilemma was faced by the Taliban in 2000. “The Taliban stopped poppy cultivation in 2000 after they came to power in 1996 [claiming it was contrary to the Islamic faith] but it was only for a short time and they soon brought it back and relied on the income [when they were overthrown in 2001),” the sources said. Throughout the war with the US-led coalition, the opium trade provided the Taliban with income for weapons and the building of increasingly sophisticated improvised explosive devices, as well as paying the wages of the 70,000 fighters, some of them foreigners. With international aid scrapped and bank assets frozen, Taliban finances would be even more reduced if they brought the drug trade to a halt. An Afghanistan opium survey carried out last year by the United Nations office on drugs and crime revealed that poppy cultivation had risen by 37 per cent in 12 months. Twenty-two out of 34 provinces were involved in poppy cultivation last year, generating 6,300 tons of opium at a “farm-gate” value of $350 million, the UN survey found. The record opium production was set in 2017 with 9,900 tons valued at around $1.4 billion. The Taliban were the main beneficiaries of the trade, including charging smugglers a ten per cent tax for shipments bound for Europe, Canada, Africa, Russia and throughout Asia. It’s estimated the Taliban netted an annual $400 million from all aspects of the drug business. The intelligence sources said that, in addition to income from the drugs trade, the Taliban would continue to boost their finances with border charges and their longstanding roadside taxation programme, involving the collection of payments from drivers of all goods vehicles in exchange for safe passage, a tradition which raised millions of dollars for the insurgents during the war. One scam no longer available for the Taliban is the taxing system they imposed on American and coalition convoys of tankers driven by Afghan contractors which criss-crossed Afghanistan to provide diesel for military units spread throughout the country during the 20-year war. More often than not the tankers would arrive at their destination half full, fuel having been siphoned off and resold on the black market. At the height of the war when there were 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, it was estimated the Taliban earned up to $100 million a year in tanker taxes.

French go mad about America's behind-their-back submarine deal with Australia

The love-in between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, first embedded in the French president's invitation to Bastille Day celebrations, is now sitting in ashes after what is seen as a mighty betrayal by Trump's successor, the nice and easygoing Joe Biden. There is a row of huge-scale proportions going on between Washington and Paris and to a lesser extent with London over the deal announced on Wednesday for Australia to cooperate with the US and Britain to build eight nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines armed with Tomahawak cruise missiles. France thought it had its own submarine deal with Australia all wrapped up and underway after an agreement was signed in 2016 by Canberra for the French to build advanced diesel-electric submarines. The programme has been going on since then and rising in cost. Alarmingly. Scott Morrison, the current Australian prime minister, decided the French deal was going pearshaped and without telling the French whispered into Biden's ear at the G7 summit in Cornwall that he fancied having nuclear-powered submarines which he thought, quite rightly, would be far more capable than the French conventionally-powered boats and better suited to the new "don't mention the war" building up with China in the Pacific. Biden and Boris who was also brought into the secret little chat thought it was a thunderously good idea - lots of money and jobs for US and British industry - and frightfully sensible strategic thinking by Scott. Or is it now Scottie? The trouble is it was all done in the most skulduggery way, all top secret and not a word to America's oldest ally, the French. So when the three-way deal was announced on Wednesday, the French ambassador in Washington had been given just two hours' notice of what the three leaders were going to say. To describe Paris as spitting mad barely scratches the surface of how Macron and co felt. Australia had already spent more than $1 billion on the French subs and now they were going to scrap the whole deal and go nuclear with the Americans. The first thing to say is that Scott Morrison is right. There is no question that having nuclear-powered submarines with Tomahawaks makes a helluva lot more sense in today's world than relying on diesel-electric boats, however quiet and effective they are. Nuclear boats can patrol the Pacific for three or four months undetected without coming up for air - and food. Diesel boats can patrol only for a few weeks before needing to surface for fuel and food replenishments. So, in terms of strategy and China and future threats in the Pacific, there is no argument. But to screw France, an ally and friend, in such a brutal manner will have long-term negative implications for the Nato alliance because Paris and others will see the US and UK cosying up without a thought for the western alliance. And the whole episode will be seen by China as a dig at them. Which it is of course. How much of this was thought through by Biden, Boris and their teams of advisers I don't know but clearly the decision was taken because it was a win win deal for the US and UK and a good move by Australia. To hell with the French, some adviser might possibly have said. The trouble is with these sort of top secret deals is that it was never going to be possible for either the Amricans or the British or the Australians to give long notice to the French because then they would have kicked up a huge fuss and got their lawyers involved. Thus, the two hours' notice was not surprising. I feel sorry for the French but in the defence procurement business there is no place for sympathy and kindness. It IS brutal because there is so much money involved. The French meanwhile need to reflect on the deal they signed with Australia for the diesel-electric submarines. Costs were spiralling and that surely must be their fault. So even if China was not the ogre in the Pacific, Autralia might have scrapped the French deal anyway for sheer value-for-money reasons. However, it's a diplomatic disaster and the French are going to have sore heads for a long, long time and Biden needs to do something to make friends with them again.

Watch out for North Korea

While the US is still agonising about Afghanistan and increasingly worrying about China, North Korea is building and building more nuclear weapons research facilities, probably hoping that Joe Biden is too preoccupied with all his domestic problems to keep an eye on what Kim Jong-un is up to. So beware, Mr President, that nice man who shook your predecessor's hand is up to no good. Where he gets the money to build his ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, heaven knows, although he's certainly not spending money on his poor food-deprived people. But he is now building a bigger uranium-enrichment plant and that means only one thing. He's trying to get more weapons-grade fuel for extra bombs. I predict before long North Korea is going to go to the top of Biden's Oh my God list.

Did General Mark Milley really ring the Chinese?

Nothing surprises me anymore about what went on in the Trump administration but, seriously, did General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Trump's principal military adviser, actually ring his counterpart in Beijing and say: "Don't worry, the US is not about to attack you but if there is any sign Trump might do something like that I'll tip you off." What!!! This is the most extraordinary thing I've heard since...well the last time there was an extraordinary claim about what was in Trump's mind, like bombing Iran. But just imagine for a moment the cataclysmic breach of trust that must have existed between Trump and Milley for America's top general to consider tipping off China in the event of a decision by the US commander-in-chief to launch some form of attack on the Chinese. I don't know which is more serious: Trump thinking of carrying out a military attack on China in order to help him win the 2020 presidential election or Milley ringing up a potential adversary and promising to give early notice of an impending strike. It is staggering. No wonder Marco Rubio has called on Joe Biden to sack Milley. Or perhaps Milley should be given the Nobel peace prize. Either way, the claims in the latest Bob Woodward book are probaby accurate. After all he does have a reputation for getting top people to talk and I'm sure he spoke with Milley who must have told him everything without attribution of course. Another reason maybe for Milley to step down, at least in the eyes of Republicans. Trump has dismissed the whole thing as fake news. If it isn't true then Milley should come out and say so. Trump always says everything is fake news, so we can't believe him. And who knows maybe he did say at some point "Hey, let's do something to China and I can then sort it all out and get the voters behind me as a tough president", but somehow I can't believe he said any such thing with Milley in his presence. So why did Milley feel it imperative to ring his Chinese counterpart and then summon all top commanders and remind them that he, Milley, was a key player in any move by the president to launch a nuclear attack. In other words, he, Milley, would put a stop to it. I know Trump was capable of almost anything but this all sounds fanciful to me.

Mask-wearing enforcement on public transport is non-existent

America has had a problem with coronavirus masking policy from the very beginning because many Americans feel it's a matter of choice not health. In the UK masking has not been nearly so controversial. During the lockdowns, the majority of people abided by the law and wore a face-covering in shops and pubic places and definitely on trains, buses and the Underground (Metro). But now that seems to have all changed. We are not in lockdown but all forms of public transport still require passengers to wear masks. Yet from my experience I would say only about 50-60 per cent of people bother to wear a face covering. Men and women of all ages just sit there on the Underground without a mask and stare you down as if to say, "don't even think about asking me". The point is, why is London Transport, for example, which has messages everywhere about the need to wear masks, doing absolutely nothing about enforcing the policy? No one is being stopped entering an Underground station if they don't have a mask on and there are no guards on the trains telling people to put masks on. So what's the point of having a mask policy? And why are so many people blatantly ignoring what surely has to be a common sense way of avoiding spreading the virus on packed trains and buses? I guess it's because there is this growing feeling that the pandemic is over and therefore restrictions of any kind are no longer necessary. If only this were true. Take a look around the world, the pandemic is still raging and here in the UK there are tens of thousands of new infections every day and more than 100 people a day dying of the virus. Covid-19 has become like smoking. People who smoke cigarettes know that it is bad, if not fatal, for their health, yet they still carry on. Likewise, everyone knows that Covid-19 kills, yet wearing a mask is still regarded as an intrusion and even though we all know it will protect others sharing the same bus,train or Underground compartment many people don't care. At least that is the only conclusion I can come to.

How committed is Biden to the Middle East?

The withdrawal by the Pentagon of an advanced anti-missile system and other air-defence weapons from Saudi Arabia has raised concerns in the kingdom about American military commitment in the Middle East. New satellite images of a section of the huge Prince Sultan air base 70 miles southeast of Riyadh where the American weapon systems had been deployed since 2019 revealed an empty site with no visible activity. The removal of the missile batteries coincides with the Pentagon's decision to relocate some of America’s most advanced weapon systems to the Indo-China region because of the perceived growing threat from Beijing. The images have emerged a few days after Saudi Arabia unexpectedly cancelled a visit by Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary. Austin had been on a Gulf tour to thank allies in the region for their support during the mass evacuation programme from Afghanistan. The Pentagon chief had been due to fly into Riyadh on the fourth day of the trip last week when he received notification from the Saudi government that “for scheduling reasons” his visit was no longer possible. There was no official confirmation from either side that the Saudi change of heart might have been linked to the removal of the American air-defence missiles. The Pentagon sent a terminal high-altitude area defence (THAAD) system as well as several Patriot missile batteries, radars and hundreds of troops to the Riyadh air base in September 2019 after the state-owned Aramco oil processing facility at Abqaiq and oil field at Khurais in the east of the country came under attack by cruise missiles and armed drones. Saudi Arabia’s own Patriot batteries supplied by the US had been facing south to protect the country’s oil sites from attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The rebels had fired missiles into Saudi Arabia on many previous occasions following the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen from 2015. The latest attack by the Houthis took place only a week ago. The Saudis intercepted a ballistic missile which fell on a neighbourhood near the city of Dammam, east of Riyadh, injuring at least two children. However, the US concluded that the cruise missiles and drones which hit the Saudi oil plants in September, 2019 came not from the south but from the north and accused Iran, which supports and arms the Houthi rebels, of carrying out the strikes. The deployment of the additional Patriot missiles and, in particular, the THAAD system which can target incoming ballistic missiles at a range of 125 miles and an altitude of around 94 miles, was seen in Saudi Arabia as evidence of the Pentagon’s full commitment to defend the kingdom from Iranian threats. “I think we [now] need to be reassured about American commitment. That looks like, for example, not withdrawing Patriot missiles from Saudi Arabia at a time when Saudi Arabia is the victim of missile and drone attacks, not just from Yemen but from Iran,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief and an influential voice in Riyadh, told CNBC. Following publication of the satellite images by the Associated Press, John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, confirmed “the redeployment of certain air defence assets”. However, he said the US continued to maintain tens of thousands of forces “and a robust force posture in the Middle East representing some of our most advanced air power and maritime capabilities in support of US national interests and our regional partnership”. In a clear reference to the US decision to switch key military systems to other parts of the world, the Saudi defence ministry said:”The redeployment of some defence capabilities of the friendly United States of America from the region is carried out through common understanding and realignment of defence strategies.”

The CIA tweets for recruits

The CIA’s first tweet on June 6, 2014 stated: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” As an attempt at humour it could have fallen flat but it provoked 300,000 retweets. Today, inside the social media unit of the Central Intelligence Agency, the dozen staff members have been celebrating a remarkably successful mission. Since bringing the secret world of America’s primary espionage service out of the shadows into the modern era of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the team at Langley in Virginia has helped to generate one of the largest and most diverse recruiting periods for a decade. The CIA’s outreach to the public could even go one step further with the agency joining Tik Tok, the burgeoning video-sharing social networking service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. However, while considering the option, it might be a step too far for an agency, one of whose priority clandestine missions is to keep abreast of what Beijing is up to in its strategic rivalry with the United States. “With Tik Tok, obviously, there’s the Chinese risk. We currently have no plans to join,” a CIA official told the Politico website. The principal aim of the social media revolution at the CIA is to make the secret agency more transparent and more attractive to recruits across a broad spectrum of talents and abilities, a spokesman told The Times.“We don’t see social media as a way to improve the image of the CIA, it’s more about transparency and demystifying ourselves as a government agency. It’s about who we are and what we do,” he said.The CIA has always had to battle with what it calls “reel versus real” – the Hollywood movie version of the James-Bond style undercover operator shooting his or her way to victory over the enemy (Carrie Matthison in Homeland) as against the real-life, lower-key clandestine intelligence officer serving overseas. “We don’t carry guns, we’re not a law enforcement agency,” the CIA spokesman said. The CIA joined Facebook and Twitter seven years ago and now has a substantial following. The latest figures from all the social platforms used by the agency include 3.2 million Twitter followers, 398,000 followers on Instagram, 993,000 likes on Facebook and 60,000 YouTube subscribers. The CIA may insist it’s not focusing on improving its image. But the negative publicity the agency has received since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, especially the waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against captured terrorist suspects in “black prisons” in the Far East and Europe, are not dwelt on in the social media charm offensive. “We want to get across that the agency is not just about the work of intelligence officers, there is a whole range of job opportunities that including managers and lawyers, graphic artists, historians, museum staff and we even run a small general store that sells CIA mugs and sweatshirts,” the spokesman said.

Why is the Delta variant so virulent in the US?

The figure is so staggering I can hardly believe it. But 80 million Americans are still unvaccinated against Covid-19! Because they don't want to be vaccinated, they think it's a breach of their rights, they don't believe it works, or they just can't be bothered. So of course Joe Biden's patience is wearing thin as he describes it which is why he has now issued an executive order telling all companies with more than 100 employees to give their staff mandatory jabs or weekly Covid tests. That has to be right. Before the winter sets in everyone has to be vaccinated. But Biden has already been attacked by Mike Pence, former vice president, for doing something which he claims is totally un-American. Oh for God's sake, needs must whether it's un-American or not. If there are 80 million Americans out there refusing to get the jab then they need to be mandated to get the vaccine not just for their safety but for everyone's else safety. Biden is right and Pence deserves never to stand for office again. Covid is not going to go away unless everyone accepts that brilliant scientists have developed a whole variety of vaccines that work and that it's sheer madness and irresponsibility not to queue up and get jabbed. If the latest decision by Biden fails to do the trick then America will be looking towards a very bleak winter.

Should Trump or Biden be blamed for the Afghanistan fiasco?

The more you hear about what the Republicans and Democrats are saying it's clear that the blame game over Afghanistan is going to be a big issue in next year's midterm elections and probably in the 2024 presidential election too. Every sensible person with even limited knowledge about how US foreign policy works should by now have concluded, rightly, that Trump was to blame for rushing through with a hairbrained so-called deal with the Taliban in Qatar on February 29 last year which gave the insurgents everything they wanted with nothing to be offered in return except vague reassurances, and Biden was to blame for changing his mind about the date for troop withdrawals and by hopelessly underestimating what might happen once the withdrawals started, leading to the airlift of more than 120,000 people from Kabul airport and a devastating but predictable Isis terrorist suicide attack. Trump and Biden share the blame. So do all the key figures in their respective administrations. The whole lot of them, secretaries of state, national security advisers, defence secretaries and top military advisers. But to hear them now justifying what they did and blaming it all on others is pretty shameful. But in politics naming, shaming and blaming is all good campaigning stuff and we are going to get a lot of it over the next few months. American voters hopefully won't be fooled but I sense that the Republicans will come out better if only because the last days of the Afghanistan fiasco took place under the Biden leadership.

Taliban are trying to look and sound legitimate

After so many calls from the US, including from Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, the Taliban must be congratulating themselves that their former enemy is now desperate to do business. The calls will make them feel legitimate governors of Afghanistan. But they are still a long way from any form of legitimacy. So they've announced an interim government and have declared that unlike their previous sojourn in Kabul between 1996 and 2001 they are now here to stay. For good. Well, again we will see. They haven't started well by telling all women they need to be escorted by a man whenever they go out and cannot ever be expected to be in any meaningful role in the gpvernment. They have also fired tear gas at women protesting about their rights in Kabul. The only thing that Blinken seems to be concerned about at the moment is to persuade the Taliban to reopen the airport and allow more Americans out of the country. I suspect the Taliban will want some quid pro quo. "We'll allow more Americans out but in return stop freezing what limited assets we have to run the country." Thanks to wholesale corruption by the previous Kabul governments and mismanagement of finances on a vast scale, there's not a lot left in the government kitty. Things are going to get desperate. Maybe I have missed it but where is Abdullah Abdullah, the former chief executive and deputy leader of the previous government? Did he run off to Qatar as well, like President Ghani? I guess he must have done. So the Taliban are going to have a bash at governing without any treasury funds. I pity the average Afghan as winter approaches. Meanwhile the Taliban claim to have seized the "last remaining" province from anti-Taliban resistance fighters - in Panjshir Valley - and that therefore the whole country is now under their control. Perhaps they are forgetting the province of Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan where 2,000 Isis fighters remain alive and well and rebellious and very very anti-Taliban. The Taliban can't claim to control the whole of Afghanistan while that militant and dangerous rabble are still around.

Another Afghanistan? Never, says US

A lot of people in the West seem to believe that the US capitulation to the Taliban and the withdrawal of all American troops mean the Biden administration is going into isolationist mode which is bad for the world and particularly bad for European/Nato allies. This is a natural gut reaction but I doubt it's really true. One thing that is true is that the Pentagon will try to avoid ever again sending tens of thousands of troops into a foreign country and engaging in a long counter-insurgency and nation-building mission. As far as the Pentagon is concerned that is the main, if not the only, lesson learned from the Afghanistan campaign. Most generals would argue that when the president gives you an operation, you stick to the objective, complete the mission and then get the hell out. The trouble with Afghanistan is that the mission may have started as a simple objective - the elimination of al-Qaeda - but as the years went by the objectives proliferated and some idiot suggested it might be a good idea to transform Afghanistan into a democracy-loving, non-corrupt, sensibly governed nation that could stand on its own two feet and be an upstanding member of the international community. There was zero chance of that ever happening, mostly because of in-built corruption that snatched away vast sums of money donated by the US and the rest of the sympathetic and generous world but also because the country never changed from being a nation of disparate farmers, poppy-growers and tribes who weren't interested in becoming westernised. Why should they? So for all these reasons, the Pentagon will say NEVER AGAIN. The military are brilliant much of the time but nation-building is not part of their DNA. So, farewell Afghanistan. There will never again be American military boots on the ground there and if any other nation, like in Africa, needs sorting out in the future, it will involve small units of special operations troops, large doses of State Department and USAID and that's it. The US will still be a world policeman but on a much much smaller scale. Until China becomes a real threat to the world that is.

What do we not know about 9/11?

Is there anything left in the thousands of pages of classified FBI and CIA documents about the 9/11 investigation which could totally change everyone's view about what happened in the lead-up to the terrorist attacks and in the immediate aftermath? Somehow I doubt it. Joe Biden has authorised the release of previously secret documents as he promised he would during his presidential election campaign. The documents will be released over a period of six months and will keep curious reporters and historians, and most importantly the families of the near-3,000 victims of 9/11, fully occupied. As with the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, the Saudi government has always denied any involvement in financing or supporting the al-Qaeda hijackers, 15 out of 19 of whom were Saudi nationals. No evidence was ever found by the congressional commission into 9/11 published in 2004. And you do have to wonder why on earth the Saudi government would want to support such a devastating terrorist attack on a country it deems to be a friend and ally, and business partner. There WAS financial support coming out of Saudi Arabia but not from the government. Nevertheless the families of the victims want to read the FBI evidence to see if there is even a hint of an official Saudi connection during what was the biggest investigation ever undertaken by the law enforcement agency. Like the assassination of John F Kennedy, I suspect that we will never learn the whole story. The new declassified FBI documents will be fascinating but I don't think anyone who reads every word is going to be able to say: "So now we know what really happened."

Afghan girls deserve football freedom

Members of the Afghanistan girls' national football team were "footsteps from freedom" when an Isis suicide bomber launched the deadly attack on Kabul international airport last week and stopped them leaving the country. Now the girls aged 14 to 16 are in hiding and waiting desperately to be rescued from the Taliban whose strict adherence to Islamic law bans the existence of female sports teams. Most of the national women's team flew out on Tuesday last week, following an arrangement with the Australian government. But the youth team, consisting of 26 players and more than 100 family members and other adults and children were unable to get flights because they lacked passports and the required documentation. Now, like so many other girls and women who have been free to play sports and take up public positions in the last 20 years, the teenage football players are moving addresses every night to avoid being targeted by the Taliban. An operation codenamed Soccer Balls is underway to try and get the girls and their families out safely. One of those behind the plan to rescue the girls is Robert McCreary, a former White House official under President George W Bush. "We need to do everything we can to protect them, to get them to a safe situation," he said. There have been five attempts to bring them out in the last few days. They were "footsteps from freedom" when the suicide bomber killed more than 180 people on Thursday last week, Farkhunda Muhtaj, captain of the Afghanistan women's football team, said. Muhtaj who lives in Canada, said: "They are devastated." The girls are now counting on an international effort to help them leave Afghanistan. "If we put a protective bubble around these women and girls I really believe the world will stand up and take notice and have a lot of offers to take them in and host them," McCreary said. He said the US had helped these girls to go to school and play football as part of the effort to improve the rights of women in the country. "They should not be in harm"s way for things that we helped them do," he said. During the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, girls were forbidden to attend school. It's not clear yet whether the Taliban, having regained power, will revive the total ban on education for girls.

Biden's bad week

President for just over seven months, I would say Joe Biden has had his worst week and one that will live long in everyone's memories. He has made a couple of speeches to the nation, the second one two days ago and on paper it wasn't bad. I read the full transcript of the speech courtesy of the US embassy in London which he made on August 31, the last day of America's war in Afghanistan. There were some nice phrases and it was a decent argument about why he felt so strongly that he had made the right decision to withdraw all troops. But Biden's delivery was not good. He sounded tired and unconvincing. None of your Trumpian waving of arms. Just a solitary figure at the microphone doing what he had to do but without much enthusiasm. Not impressive. By contrast there was an amazingly good documentary on TV about 9/11 and the recollections of all the key players, most notably George W Bush himself about what they all did on that day. The documentary included that memorable scene several days later when Biden went to Ground Zero in New York and addressed the firemen and other emergency workers. He started off by saying what a great and courageous job they were doing but then suddenly he must have realised that this was a unique moment for him when platitudes were not what was required. So he raised his arms and vowed that those who were responsible for killing nearly 3,000 people would be found and dealt with. It hit the right note because immediately the firemen and ambulancemen and police started shouting "USA USA USA!" Bush spoke with vigour and his audience believed him. I don't think Biden has it in him to rouse anyone to shout USA USA USA. He also of course vowed revenge on Isis for killing 13 American service personel at Kabul airport and duly authorised a drone strike the following day. But, again, he delivered his revenge pledge with a voice that lacked oomph. It was not the voice of a commander-in-chief. All is not lost for the Biden administration but somehow the president has to up his game.

Last man out

The two-star general cut a lonely figure. He didn’t have to look behind him to know that he was the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan after a 20-year war. Major-General Christopher Donahue, commanding general of 82nd Airborne Division, had made sure that the final passenger load for the last flight of a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft out of Kabul was complete before boarding himself. For the previous 13 days he had been in charge of the ground-troop operation at Hamid Karzai international airport, marshalling the thousands of Afghan evacuees and American citizens into planes and securing the runway and perimeter against attack. It was one minute before midnight on Monday August 30 and the spooky green image of him striding towards the plane with his assault rifle in his hand will go down in history as the final symbol of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The picture was taken by a camera with a night-vision system from within the C-17. Donahue had flown to Kabul on August 17, four days after his 52nd birthday. With 29 years of service in the US Army, it was to be his most challenging command mission. His background had prepared him for the task. Trained at the military academy at West Point, he initially served as an officer in the 75th Ranger Regiment and later as a squadron commander and deputy brigade commander with US Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in California. He was also special assistant to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and has deployed 17 times in support of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, north Africa and eastern Europe. He has already received praise from General Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, in overall charge of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and throughout the Middle East. His departure from Kabul airport will be compared by historians with similar last-out images of other military men who served in Afghanistan and had to withdraw after admitting defeat in a country which has never welcomed foreign occupations. On February 15, 1989, General Boris Gromov, the last commanding general of Russian forces in Afghanistan, walked alone behind a long convoy of tanks and armoured vehicles pulling out of the country after ten years of war with anti-communist Islamic guerrillas. “That’s it, “ Gromov told a television crew. “Not one Soviet soldier is behind my back.” The column of Russian armoured vehicles crossed the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan into Uzbekistan during the final exit. On the bridge Gromov, commander of the Soviet Union’s 40th Army, was seen walking arm-in-arm with his son carrying a bouquet of red and white flowers. Asked how he felt returning to Russian territory, he replied: “Joy, that we carried out our duty and came home. I did not look back.” More than a century earlier, in 1842, William Brydon, an assistant surgeon serving with a British-commanded infantry force recruited in India to provide protection for the East India Company’s puppet ruler in Kabul, was the last man out of Afghanistan and the sole survivor after his unit came under attack by Afghan tribesman en route to the eastern city of Jalalabad. Brydon made his escape on horseback.